108 _
philosopher, Blaise Pascal once had something very apt
to say about this: “Nothing is so intolerable to man as
being fully at rest, without a passion, without business,
without entertainment, without care”. It’s a very human
trait to always want to have something to do; people
were already struggling with this 400 years ago. We
prefer to find a distraction, because, as Pascal said, “All
of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit
quietly in a room alone”. It’s hard for us to just ‘be’ and
to resist the temptation to be guided by our thoughts.
“Our brains have the habit of wanting to stay busy all
the time,” Muis says. “The easiest way to do this is in
fact to stare at your phone; it precludes the need to do
anything else to stay entertained or, rather, distracted. In
the absence of a phone, our brains quickly turn to worry.
There is always something to solve; this is what our
brains love.”WHITE SPACE
In other words, it’s difficult but not impossible. If you delve
ever-deeper into the subject of ‘relaxation’, you will end
up at ‘nothing’. In many Eastern philosophies, people
think about this word on a fundamental level. I was
intrigued: What could ‘nothing’ mean in my own life?
Could it help me achieve inner peace? After reading a lot
on this subject, I discovered the Japanese concept of ma,
which essentially means ‘interval’, ‘between’ or something
that is neither space nor time. It is used in Japan in the
arts (things are suggested through either omission or the
use of a white space), architecture (‘space’ can result in
either tension or calm), music (the silence between
chords), stage productions, flower arrangements
(ikebana), etiquette (bowing with short breaks to show
respect to the person standing across from you), and
even conversations (silence is part of the conversation).
Ma assumes that the space we Westerners may call
‘nothing’ is actually filled with ‘something’. In his book
Waar geen wil is, is een weg (Where There’s No Will, >It was summer and all of the ingredients for total inner
peace were there: the campsite in the South of France,
the forest, the books on ‘how to find ultimate relaxation’.
In spite of it all, I couldn’t quite manage to get into Zen
mode, which was strange because I wasn’t really that
stressed. I tried a few things, such as going to the
campsite’s sauna more often, reading less, then reading
more, and sitting around doing nothing. All of this only
left me feeling frustrated. Nothing seemed to help me
relax. If I had known then that I would later read the
preceding sentence in a completely different way...
because one year down the line, I have learned about the
Japanese concept of ma, a sort of nothing-something.RELAXATION AS AN AGENDA ITEM
According to Dutch psychologist Suzie Muis, my vacation
is typical of the times we live in. “Not only are we always
busy, we also place huge demands on life,” she says.
“Everything has to be perfect. This is why we’re
constantly under pressure; no wonder it’s hard for us
to relax, even though we have a need to do so in this
information-addicted society.” She also believes that the
actual act of relaxation has become an agenda item that
must be done perfectly. “The fact that it has become
an obligation is the reason it fails,” she says. “All of the
images on social media from one influencer after the
other, posts of them holding a cocktail on a sun-drenched
beach and so on, sure don’t help to reduce the pressure.”
Over the past year, I have noticed that slowing down,
putting on the brakes, doing nothing, and just lounging
around may be frequently used phrases, but they are still
verbs, action words. Relaxation as a task on your to-do
list. We are looking for peace and quiet and though we
look harder and harder, we still can’t manage to find it.
We don’t exactly make it easy for ourselves though,
because when the time finally comes when we really
have nothing to do, we sit and stare at our smartphones.
Why do we do this? The 17th-century French‘MA ASSUMES THAT THE
SPACE WE WESTERNERS
MAY CALL “NOTHING”
IS ACTUALLY FILLED
WITH “SOMETHING”’